Pre-K-2
Your home team can set the stage for students to make math connections. Students will record wins and losses in different formats to discover connections between many of the concepts taught earlier in the year. This lesson will provide daily and weekly practice with patterns, addition and subtraction equations, number models and math communication.
3-5
Project this lesson on a whiteboard and watch your students “number line dance” their way to fluency in estimation of products. The lesson is scaffolded to start students finding basic multiplication facts on a number line and ends with students estimating four digit products on a number line. Use the lesson to teach estimation of products or as a culmination of your own estimation of products lesson.
Pre-K-2
Students search for hidden ducks in the classroom without collecting them and design their own method for keeping track of what they find. Discussion follows to compare methods used (tallies, numbers, dots, etc.) It would be fun to use this in the spring as an alternative to an egg hunt.
3-5, 6-8
If a tree could talk, we could ask it how old it is. Here is a mathematical way to estimate the age of your schoolyard trees. Students will measure circumference of trees in order to find diameter and calculate age of local trees using a growth rate table.
6-8
In this lesson,
students learn the definition of like terms and gain practice in identifying
key features to sort and combine them. Most middle school students are adept at
recognizing the nuances of dress and manner that identify groups and cliques
among their peers. This lesson applies the observation and sorting skills that
students already possess to the important task of identifying and combining
like terms. Students will play the game Ker-Splash and derive rules for working
with like terms.
3-5
Students compute with whole numbers and and decimals
as they make recommendations for buying an aquarium for the class. Students
research the various materials needed for the aquarium and make plans based on
their findings. They solve the problem while working within a budget.
3-5
In this lesson, students apply their knowledge of whole
number place value to decimal place value by using different blocks to represent
one whole. By using blocks other than the unit cube to represent one whole,
decimal place value can be explored and understood in a concrete fashion.
3-5, 6-8
Studying the behavior and motion of dinosaurs is obviously a
challenge since these creatures are extinct. If researchers wish to examine the
running velocity of a dinosaur, they must instead consider other evidence of
dinosaur motion and make an indirect estimate. In this lesson, students will
play the role of researchers who field test the Alexander Formula—a formula that uses paleontology data to estimate dinosaur running
velocities. Students will serve as human analogues, making measurements on
themselves, computing predicted running velocities using the Alexander Formula,
and calculating their actual running velocities. They will then evaluate the
accuracy of the formula by comparing estimated and actual running velocities
for the class.
6-8
The lesson is based upon Aesop’s fable,
“The Crow and the Pitcher,” and involves students making predictions and conducting
experiments to determine how many pebbles the crow would need to add to the
pitcher in order to bring the water to drinking height. In the course of the
investigation, students gain a real-world understanding of linear functions and
such concepts as slope,
y-intercept,
domain, and range.
6-8
In this lesson, students will play card
and computer games by adding fractions to make 1. Students will determine how
the fractions are related, by first determining what they have and then how
much more is needed. Through different interactive games, students will utilize their skills and build upon them to expand their
understanding of fractions. Students will be able to determine common
denominators and other strategies to add fractions with like and unlike
denominators.
